My Documents...Hmmmph!

**Banyarola** · 2010-08-19 07:49

I may have asked this before but I'm not sure if it was here or some other forum.

I have a dual boot system. XP on one drive and Windows 7 on the other drive.

Using PC Mover I got everything moved over from XP to 7 and it's all working pretty good.

My problem is this.

I have a program in XP that has all it's data stored in a folder in MY DOCUMENTS.

That folder is now in DOCUMENTS in Windows 7 and my program can't access the data because it's looking for MY Documents to access the data.
There is no way to change the path in the program.

It is literally thousands of files and would take forever to run the program and then load each file so the program would link to the files where they are now in Windows 7....

Is there a way to overcome this or am I just stuck with it the way it is.?

Microsoft always seems to screw things up... You would think they would just leave the folder name the same instead of having some peach fuzz programmer come up with the bright idea of changing the name.

Thanks for any suggestions.

**Medico** · 2010-08-19 07:53

Right click on the folder in question and choose Properties. In properties choose Location. Choose Move. In the next box, choose the folder tto move to and select Apply. See if this helps.

**littledog2** · 2010-08-19 08:13

alright i am sorry if my comment is not going to help, just trying to chip in

http://www.sevenforums.com/general-d...documents.html <----windows 7 trying to rename that document folders, might be the one that can save you.

http://renegadetech.blogspot.com/200...uments-to.html <------might be old and useless, but just including it in case it actually words

**mercyh** · 2010-08-19 08:30

That folder is now in DOCUMENTS in Windows 7 and my program can't access the data because it's looking for MY Documents to access the data.
There is no way to change the path in the program.

I wonder how specific the path built into that program is? There are very few programs that you cannot change the path to the data.

Be aware that if you actually cannot change the path at all, the old location on windows XP was "C:\Documents and Settings\Your_User_Name\My Documents".
The new path on Windows 7 is "C:\Users\Your_User_Name\Documents"

If you need to recreate the old path exactly, be sure you give yourself full rights and ownership as windows 7 does not do this automatically for new directories created in the root of drive C:

The program may be calling the relative path of: "%UserProfile%\My Documents"

http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/35...relative-path/

If the program is calling the relative path, you should be able to create a new directory in the C:\Users\Your_User_Name\ directory called My Documents. You should then be able to move the program's data directory there and the program should see it....

**Roderunner** · 2010-08-19 19:45

Banya, why not just load XP, open doc's folder and copy or move to an external hdd. Now load W7 and replace them where you want.

**cafed00d** · 2010-08-19 20:21

Go into the registry of both Windows 7 and XP and change the settings in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders so that they both point to the same folder. I have "Personal", "My Pictures", "My Video" and several others all pointing to the same same folder so that whether I am in XP or 7 I see the same pictures, document, videos, etc.

**Medico** · 2010-08-20 06:59

Originally Posted by Peter Johnson2191

Go into the registry of both Windows 7 and XP and change the settings in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders so that they both point to the same folder. I have "Personal", "My Pictures", "My Video" and several others all pointing to the same same folder so that whether I am in XP or 7 I see the same pictures, document, videos, etc.

If the move procedure I outlined in post #2 is followed, this registry entry changes to the new location you specify, in my case the data partition ("D") without having to manually changing the path in the registry. It is possible though that manually changing this path would solve the OP problem since his data already is moved to Win 7 but does not point to the correct folder name. Hmmmm, very interesting. Thumbs Up for Peter!

**Banyarola** · 2010-08-20 07:47

I'm gonna try these suggestions today and see what happens..

It still behooves me why they would change the name of My Documents when they know there are tons of programs out there that use My Documents as thier default folder with no way of changing it.

**Medico** · 2010-08-20 08:12

Originally Posted by Banya Rola

I'm gonna try these suggestions today and see what happens..

It still behooves me why they would change the name of My Documents when they know there are tons of programs out there that use My Documents as thier default folder with no way of changing it.

I never noticed before and I am puzzled now. In our Win 7 (Ultimate and Home Premium) the documents folders are called My Documents. The only place it is called just Documents is in the Library. A Google Search for Win 7 Libraries shows numerous listings which explain the Libraries. These are not the actual folders, but more like a convenient pointer to the actual folders. The actual folder is called My Documents. Perhaps when you moved the data in My Documents you tried to drop it in the Library rather than the actual folder.

[attachment=89685:2010-08-20_0933.png]

You might try dropping it into the actual folder and see if this works. Look in User Name (This is the name you assigned when you set up the OS)/ My Documents (You may see 2 My Documents. One is the Win 7 folder, 1 is a junction point for older legacy programs that is not user accessible. You will only see both, I believe, if you have shown all system folders.) Try dropping your data here and see if this works.

**Roderunner** · 2010-08-20 08:22

I think this is what Ted means.

[attachment=89683:Ted.JPG]

**Medico** · 2010-08-20 08:32

Originally Posted by Roderunner

I think this is what Ted means.

[attachment=89683:Ted.JPG]

I edited my post to include a shot. The actual folder is listed under Ted (my user name). I believe both my example and your example point to the same folder.

**mercyh** · 2010-08-20 08:43

I never noticed before and I am puzzled now. In our Win 7 (Ultimate and Home Premium) the Documents folders are called My Documents.

You are correct. (I had checked on a Windows Server 2008 and assumed Win7 would be the same). I just now checked on a Win7 professional and the path is C:\Users\My_User_name\My Documents .....

The old relative path from Windows XP should work fine as "%UserProfile%\My Documents" should point to the same place...

Try this:

Go to the command Prompt (type CMD in the search box and hit enter)

At the prompt type

Code:

CD \

(you should now be at the root of C and your prompt should be C:\> )

Now type

Code:

CD "%UserProfile%\My Documents"

Your prompt should now be C:\Users\Your_User_Name\My Documents >

If you now type

Code:

DIR

You should see a list of all the files and directories in your My Documents folder including the data directory for the program that is giving you trouble. If this does not work, post back and we will see if we can figure out why not.

(let us know what step fails if it does not work)

(I am at work on Windows XP now so cannot test the relative path on Win7.)

**mercyh** · 2010-08-20 08:55

It is literally thousands of files and would take forever to run the program and then load each file so the program would link to the files where they are now in Windows 7....

This statement intrigues me. Would you be willing to share what program you are talking about?

Are you talking about some "previously opened file" list within the program?

These types of lists use "Actual" paths so the change from this "C:\Documents and Settings\" on XP to this "C:\Users\" on 7 may be what is breaking it, however, I can't imagine that a program could have the actual path hardcoded into it's data store folder.. (How would it know what the user name was going to be)

If the program actually can't change its data path, how would loading each file in the program fix this problem.......?

What about putting a link to that folder on your desktop, associating those files to that program (so that it is the default program that opens those files) and then opening them by double clicking the files instead of opening them from within the program?

**Banyarola** · 2010-08-20 09:19

Great ideas..

I'm working in XP now and will re-boot into 7 and try some of these ideas...

**mercyh** · 2010-08-20 09:21

Ted,

This is where junctions are driving us CRAZY. Nothing is as it seems.

If you do a

Code:

CD %UserProfile%

and then do

Code:

DIR

you will see that in the command window the directory is call Documents (just like my Server 2008 showed) HOWEVER, if you look at it in Windows Explorer on Win 7 the path shows My Documents.

If you try to create a new folder in this location Called My Documents, you get a message that a folder Documents (yes that is right, the error does not say My Documents) already exists.

If you want to see the REST of the story issue a

Code:

dir /a

and it will maybe make a little more sense WHY this is happening.....

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